


Lost Boys in Slumberland

by secretfanboy



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mahealahey, Pre-Slash, Sweet, family illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-09 00:14:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/767745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretfanboy/pseuds/secretfanboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isaac has had insomnia for many years so he walks the town at night.  Lately, Danny has also had trouble sleeping.  Together they create a space that is all their own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost Boys in Slumberland

Isaac jolts awake.  A thin sweat covers his body and his heart is pounding.  Despite how tired he is and how desperately he wants to go back to sleep he has to use the visual input from the room to clear the nightmare from his head.

The bite might have made him a big bad werewolf in his waking hours, but while sleeping he still became a child again.  A child with no defense except to run or scream.  Tonight it was the monster/father chasing him through the house.  Sometimes he's running through a forest hiding from his father, but also looking for his father to protect him.

He knows he's woken Derek because Derek's a light sleeper.  He doesn't come in to check on Isaac anymore, because he knows this happens every night.  After two to three hours of sleep Isaac wakes from a nightmare and if he's lucky, after a few hours of clearing his head he might get a couple more hours of sleep.

The digital clock says midnight, which means he's gotten about two hours of sleep.  He hopes it won't be his last for the night.  He turns on the light and starts getting dressed.  Being the light sleeper he is, Derek won't sleep if Isaac does his decompressing at home.  So Isaac goes out and walks the town at night.

He nods to the doormen of bars as he walks past.  They've all become familiar to each other as time has passed.  He walks past the all-night diner, but doesn't go in.  He used to be a regular there, but one night the waitress started looking at him differently.  He knew that she'd heard about what happened to him, it wasn't a secret after his father was killed.  Probably from one of the cops coming in for late night coffee.  These same cops that had once arrested him for the murder of his father, now said hi and were friendly to him.  He didn't want the waitress to be nice to him because of what had happened to him.  He wanted her to be nice to him because they were friends.

He keeps on walking, wandering out of downtown and up into the neighborhoods.  When he finds himself about to step onto his old block he takes an abrupt right turn.  Derek would chastise him for not paying attention to his surroundings.  Scott probably would too, but he's a bigger space case than Isaac so he has no room to talk.  Derek nurtures by being stern and demanding.  Because of how Derek is, he can see now that was what his father thought he was doing before he lost his way.  Scott nurtures by being kind and supportive.  He's more like a mom that way.  Having met Scott's mom, Isaac knows where he got it from.

Isaac knows he's not being vigilant when he gets within fifty feet of the figure standing by the park before he notices him.  He stops to evaluate the man gazing at the deserted playground.  Halting his footsteps must have alerted the guy because he turns toward Isaac and then slowly gives a small wave.  The streetlight is now illuminating his face and Isaac can now see that it's Danny Mahealani.  The moment feels awkward and if he'd seen Danny first he would have just gone in another direction, but now Danny's looking at him expectantly so he feels obliged to go up and talk to him.

"How's it going?" Danny smiles.  He always smiles.

"Alright.  What are you doing out here so late?"  Isaac guessed it was about 1:30am.

"Couldn't sleep.  You?"

"Me either."

They talk about school and they talk about sports.  They talk about video games, Danny has all the latest, Isaac's hasn't played any in a while.  Isaac finds it really easy to talk to Danny and now he's glad he stopped.  Danny suggests they move onto the playground and they sit on the swings and continue their conversation.  They talk about things that happened when they were in grade school.  They were never friends, but going to the same school they shared some experiences.  Danny yawns and Isaac's phone says that it's after 4am.  He excuses himself and they have an awkward goodbye.  Isaac doesn't want this to be the end of the little friendship he has just started and he's hoping that the way Danny was acting means he doesn't want it to end either.  He gets a couple of hours more sleep before having to start his day and almost feels refreshed.

The next night when he wakes at 1am Isaac tells himself that he's going to think about heading in the general direction of where he met Danny, but in truth he walks straight there.  Danny's waiting for him on the swings.  They talk about college.  Isaac's not sure he's going, Danny want to go for computer science so that he can program video games.  Danny's dad doesn't want him to because he thinks his son should be running video game companies, not working for them.  Danny talks about Jackson, how he skipped town abruptly and left a lot of questions for Danny.  Left him without his best friend for life.  He asks Isaac if he knows anything more, alluding that he knows Isaac had some kind of relationship with Jackson that didn't include him.  Isaac doesn't know more about Jackson's whereabouts or why he left, and telling Danny about the pack won't help him ease his feeling of abandonment so he just stays silent.

The next night Isaac actually worries that he might have slept too long when he wakes, but finds he's only slept for two hours.  He gets dressed and heads straight for the park.  Danny's not there so he gets on the swings and waits.  Danny arrives around 1am much to Isaac's relief.  Danny tells Isaac he's hungry and wants to walk to the 24 hour convenience store.  Isaac suggests the diner and Danny loves the idea.  They walk the distance and grab a booth in the back.  Danny talks about his ex-boyfriend and Isaac wishes he had an ex-girlfriend to share stories about.  Isaac tells him that he's been an insomniac since I was a kid, Danny says his insomnia is more recent.

"My mom has breast cancer."

"Oh, I'm sorry."  Isaac doesn't know what else to say.

"She had it a few years ago and they just cut the lump out.  This time it's more aggressive so they're doing chemo first, then deciding what to do."

Danny is tearing up and Isaac decides that his best move is not to say anything.

"They might just cut off both of her breasts.  So they can be sure they get it and it can't  ever comes back."  The tears flow out of him now.  He chokes out the words, "Everything is gonna be fine.  I don't know why this is making me cry so much."

Isaac wishes he could put his hand on Danny and pull his pain into himself, but he's sure that trick only works on physical pain.  Isaac's never been the person someone goes to for comfort so he feels a little out of his depth.  He thinks about what Scott would do and moves from his side of the booth and scoots in next to Danny, putting his arm around him.  Danny leans into him and he knows he's done the right thing.

Their food arrives and Danny composes himself in front of the concerned and slightly suspicious waitress.  They eat in silence at first, but soon strawberry shakes change the mood.  Isaac feels so full and relaxed in the booth next to Danny that he nearly starts to doze.  Danny offers to walk home alone since Isaac lives so close, but Isaac insists on walking him all the way home.  Danny makes sure they exchange numbers before they part.

Isaac tries going to sleep early the next night, but it doesn't work.  Only two hours sleep.  When he does wake up he checks his phone, but there are no messages.  He gets dressed and heads in the direction of Danny's house, soon receiving a text: <You want to just meet at my place?>  Isaac texts back in the affirmative and stays the course.  When he gets to Danny's, he texts him: <Here.>

Danny comes to greet him and takes him around to the garage entrance.  There's a couch in there with an old television that Danny has hooked one of his game systems up to.  There's snacks and sodas, so the two of them get straight to thwarting an alien invasion.  Isaac feels very lucky to have this time with Danny, it's like their own little nighttime world that they get to share.  It's very comfortable and by 3:30am he's already feeling very drowsy.

"I need to rest my eyes for a minute."

"That sounds pretty good," says Danny.  "I'll do that myself."

The next thing Isaac realizes is that the garage door is opening and sunlight is streaming in.  He and Danny are both laid out on opposite sides of the couch, their legs intertwined.  A large Hawaiian man with salt and pepper hair stands over them.

"Danny, you should have told us that you were having someone stay over."

The man's voice is stern and he looks at the two of them suspiciously.  Isaac realizes that he's assuming that something is going on between the two of them that is beyond friendship.

"Isaac didn't mean to stay over.  He just came over to play some games because he can't sleep either."

Danny's father's face softens.  "Isaac do you need me to call your parents and let them know where you are?"

"No, I'm okay."

Isaac checks his phone.  It's 8:30am.  He's slept for almost five hours.  He can't remember the last time he slept for five hours in a night, let alone all at once.  As he walks home in the sunlight he thinks about Danny's father's assumptions about the two of them.  The idea never before crossed Isaac's mind that he and Danny would be more than friends, but now that it was there he didn't find it displeasing.  Did Danny think of him as more than a friend?  Were they really only friends in their nighttime world?  If it wasn't summer vacation would they be hanging out at school?

At 8pm that night Isaac received a text from Danny: <My parents think you should just come over and stay the night.  That okay?>

<Sure> he replies.  Isaac hasn't had a sleep over since the second grade and he's not exactly sure what to bring so he just packs a change of clothes and his toothbrush.  When he gets to the house he wonders if he should just text Danny, but realizes that if his parents are the ones wanting this he should just go to the front door.  He rings and Danny answers.

"Hey! C'mon in!"

Isaac meets Danny's mother and sister who has moved home to help care for her mother.  Danny's mother seems healthy to him, but he's heard how these things go.  He officially meets Danny's dad who is very friendly with him.  Isaac wonders what Danny has said to them, but he can't figure it out from their reaction to him.  Danny leads him down to the family room where he has a massive video game setup and two bed rolls right next to each other.

They start off on the couch watching a movie about alien's invading Earth and there are a lot of robots fighting and exploding.  Isaac's never been into sci-fi before, but Danny's enthusiasm is infectious and he finds himself really enjoying the movie despite its shortcomings.  There's no door on the family room and members of the Mahealani clan occasionally stops by to watch them.  Without werewolf senses, Isaac's not sure Danny notices, but maybe he just has a sense that people who love him are looking over him.

They've paused the military shoot-em-up game they're playing when Isaac asks Danny about his mom.  Danny tells him she's doing well, everything looks fine, she's not experiencing a lot of side effects from the chemo.  Their conversation drifts to other topics.  Isaac doesn't mean to, but he yawns because he's usually gotten a couple of hours sleep at this point.

"Why don't we rest for a bit?" Danny suggests with a smile.

They lay on top of the bedrolls because it's too hot to get in them.  Isaac closes his eyes, but he can't sleep despite how tired he is.  His feelings for Danny are jumbled in his head.  He knows he values their friendship and doesn't want to jeopardize it, but he's also sure that he's full of these other feelings for him as well.  Feelings he wasn't expecting.  He rolls over on his side and looks at Danny's back.  He can feel the heat coming off of Danny.  He thinks about putting his arm around Danny at the diner, about falling asleep and finding their legs intertwined when he woke.  He knows that when he's not with Danny, he's thinking about being with Danny and right now he wants to be closer with him more than anything.

He reaches out and puts his hand on Danny's arm.  Half of his hand is touching his shirt, but the half that is touching his skin tingles.

"Hey," whispers Danny.  It seems he wasn't asleep either.

"Is this okay?"

"Of course."

"Can I...?" Isaac isn't sure how to complete the sentence.  There is something in Isaac's chest that is pulling him toward Danny.  So many years of loneliness and need come to the surface and Danny draws him like a ground for that charge. 

Isaac shifts his body closer to Danny and slides his hand down across Danny's chest, pulling their bodies together.  His face is buried in the back of Danny's head being tickled  by Danny's hair.  Isaac isn't sure he's ever been this close or intimate with another person in his life.  His nose is filled by the scent of Danny and Isaac feels as though he is being transported elsewhere.  Danny reaches up and grasps Isaac's arm, pulling the embrace closer.  The warmth of Danny's body radiates from his chest into every part of his body.

Isaac knows that it feels like something he hasn't felt in a long time: Safe.

 

 


End file.
